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Witi Ihimaera,
who will be delivering this year's Distinguished Lecture
as well as taking part in the Festival, has won many national New Zealand
literary awards. He has won the Montana NZ Book of the Year Award for
fiction three times, one of only two New Zealand writers to do so. He
also published the first book of short fiction (Pounamu pounamu,
1972), and the first novel (Tangi, 1973) by a Maori. He
is also the first anthologist of Maori writing with his two significant
anthologies Into the World of Light and Te Ao Marama: contemporary
Maori writing (in 5 volumes).
Main Fiction
Publications:
Pounamu, Pounamu (1972), Tangi (1973), Whanau
(1974) The New Net Goes Fishing (1976), Into the World of
Light (ed, 1984), The Matriarch (1986), The Whale Rider
(1987), Dear Miss Mansfield (1989), Te Ao Marama (Ed,
Vols 1-5, 189-1995), Bulibasha, King of the Gypsies (1994), Nights
in the Gardens of Spain (1995), Kingfisher Come Home (1995),
The Dream Swimmer (1997), The Uncle's Story (2000),
Woman Far Walking (2000), The Little Kowhai Tree (2002),
Sky Dancer (2002), Ihimaera: His Best Stories (2003),
Whanau II (2004).
Whale Rider, the movie based
on his novel The Whale Rider, has won many prestigious international
film awards. His first play, Woman Far Walking premiered
at the International Festival of the Arts in Wellington in 2000 and was
staged in Honolulu in 2001.
As well as being a highly
successful and prolific author, he is also an accomplished opera librettist.
He is the Distinguished Creative Fellow in Maori Literature at the University
of Auckland. Witi Ihimaera recently received one of his country's highest
honours: Distinguished Companion, Order of New Zealand. |
Witi
Ihimaera